City of Red Deer down to one confirmed active case of COVID-19

The City of Red Deer is down to just one confirmed active case of COVID-19.

The provincial government released the latest statistics on its website Saturday afternoon.

Thirty-six of the city’s 37 total confirmed cases are now recovered, according to geospatial mapping on the government’s website.

Ponoka County now has three recovered and no active cases – in Friday’s government update, the county had one active and two recovered cases.

Many other central Alberta communities’ COVID-19 numbers remain unchanged: Red Deer County has one active and 15 recovered cases, Clearwater County and Stettler County both have two recovered cases, Mountain View County has seven recovered and two active cases, the City of Lacombe sits at two recovered cases and Lacombe County is at three recovered cases.

There are just three confirmed active COVID-19 cases in the central zone.

Provincially, 18 new cases were announced Saturday afternoon. There are now 6,818 total confirmed cases in Alberta: 814 are active, 5,869 have recovered and 135 have died.

One new death has been reported as well. That death was not located within the central zone.

Forty-eight people are currently in hospital due to the virus, which is three more than Friday. The intensive care unit admission total remains at six.

To date, 621 cases have an unknown exposure.

So far 212,724 Albertans have been tested and labs have performed 232,774 tests, with 3,981 tests completed in the last 24 hours.

Starting Monday, some Albertans will have access to more health services, including voluntary testing for asymptomatic staff and residents in long-term care and some designated supportive living facilities.